Mr. Capell informs me, (and he is, in thefe matters, the most able of all men to give information,) that our author appears to have been beholden to fome novels, which he hath yet only feen in French or Italian: but he adds, "to say they are not in fome English dress, profaic or metrical, and perhaps with circumstances nearer to his ftories, is what I will not take upon me to do: nor indeed is what I believe; but rather the contrary, and that time and accident will bring fome of them to light, if not all."

W. Painter, at the conclufion of the second Tome of his Palace of Pleasure, 1567, advertises the reader, "bicause fodaynly (contrary to expectation) this volume is risen to a greater heape of leaues, I doe omit for this present time fundry nouels of mery deuife, referuing the fame to be joyned with the rest of another part, wherein shall fucceede the remnant of Bandello, fpecially futch (fuffrable) as the learned French man François de Belleforest hath felected, and the choyfeft done in the Italian. Some alfo out of Frizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino Parabofco, Cynthio, Straparole, Sanfouino, and the best liked out of the Queene of Nauarre, and other authors. Take these in good part, with those that haue and fhall come forth."-But I am not able to find that a third Tome was ever published: and it is very probable, that the intereft of his book fellers, and more especially the prevailing mode of the time, might lead him afterward to print his fundry novels feparately. If this were the cafe, it is no wonder, that fuch fugitive pieces are recovered with difficulty; when the two Tomes, which Tom Rawlinson would have called jufta volumina, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who fearched after books of this fort with the utmost avidity, most certainly had not seen them, when he published his Typographical Antiquities; as appears from his blunders about

them:

them: and possibly I myself might have remained in the fame predicament, had I not been favoured with a copy by my generous friend Mr. Lort.

Mr. Colman, in the Preface to his elegant tranflation of Terence, hath offered fome arguments for the learning of Shakspeare, which have been retailed with much confidence, fince the appearance of Mr. Johnson's edition.

"Befides the refemblance of particular paffages fcattered up and down in different plays, it is well known, that the Comedy of Errors is in great measure founded on the Menæchmi of Plautus; but I do not recollect ever to have seen it observed, that the disguise of the Pedant in The Taming of the Shrew, and his affuming the name and character of Vincentio, feem to be evidently taken from the disguise of the Sycophanta in the Trinummus of the said author; and there is a quotation from the Eunuch of Terence also, so familiarly introduced into the dialogue of The Taming of the Shrew, that I think it puts the queftion of Shakspeare's having read the Roman comick poets in the original language out of all doubt,

"Redime te captum, quam queas, minimo."

With respect to resemblances, I fhall not trouble you any further. That the Comedy of Errors is founded on the Menæchmi, it is notorious: nor is it lefs fo, that a translation of it by W. W. perhaps William Warner, the author of Albion's England, was extant in the time of Shakspeare; though Mr. Upton, and fome other advocates for his learning, have cautiously dropt the mention of it. Befides this, (if indeed it were different,) in the Gefta Grayorum, the Christmas Revels of the Grays Inn Gentlemen, 1594, “a Comedy of Errors like to Plautus his Menechmus was played by the Players." And the

fame

fame hath been fufpected to be the subject of the goodlie Comedie of Plautus, acted at Greenwich before the King and Queen in 1520; as we learn from Hall and Holinshed:-Riccoboni highly compliments the English on opening their stage fo well; but unfortunately, Cavendish in his Life of Wolfey calls it, an excellent Interlude in Latine. About the fame time it was exhibited in German at Nuremburgh, by the celebrated Hanssach, the fhoemaker.

"But a character in The Taming of the Shrew is borrowed from the Trinummus, and no translation of that was extant."

Mr. Colman indeed hath been better employed: but if he had met with an old comedy, called Supposes, translated from Ariofto by George Gafcoigne, he certainly would not have appealed to Plautus. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot, (as well as fome of the phrafeology,) though Theobald pronounces it his own invention: there likewise he found the quaint name of Petruchio. My young mafter and his man exchange habits and characters, and perfuade a Scenæfe, as he is called, to perfonate the father, exactly as in the Taming of the Shrew, by the pretended danger of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of the govern

ment.

Still, Shakspeare quotes a line from the Eunuch of Terence: by memory too, and what is more, purposely alters it, in order to bring the sense within the compass of one line.". -This remark was previous to Mr. Johnfon's; or indifputably it would not have been made at all.

"Our author had this line from Lilly; which I mention that it may not be brought as an argument of his learning."

"But how," cries an unprovoked antagonist,

can

you

you take upon you to fay, that he had it from Lilly, and not from Terence ?" I will answer for Mr. Johnson, who is above answering for himself.-Because it is quoted as it appears in the grammarian, and not as it appears in the poet.And thus we have done with the purposed alteration. Udall likewise, in his Floures for Latin speaking, gathered out of Terence 1560, reduces the paffage to a fingle line, and subjoins a translation.

We have hitherto fuppofed Shakspeare the author of the Taming of the Shrew, but his property in it is extremely disputable. I will give you my opinion, and the reafons on which it is founded. I fuppofe then the prefent play not originally the work of Shakspeare, but restored by him to the stage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and fome other occafional improvements; especially in the character of Petruchio. It is very ob. vious, that the induction and the play were either the works of different hands, or written at a great interval of time: the former is in our author's best manner, and the greater part of the latter in his worst, or even below it. Dr. Warburton declares it to be certainly fpurious: and without doubt, fuppofing it to have been written by Shakspeare, it must have been one of his earliest productions; yet it is not mentioned in the lift of his works by Meres in 1598.

I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596, (and possibly there may be an earlier edition,) called, The Metamorphofis of Ajax, where I fufpect an allufion to the old play: "Reade the booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us fo perfect, that now every one can rule a fhrew in our countrey, fave he that hath hir."-I am aware, a modern linguift may object, that the word book does not at prefent leem dramatick, but it was once almoft technically fo: Gof

fon,

fon, in his Schoole of Abufe, "contayning a pleafaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Festers, and such like Caterpillars of a common-wealth," 1579, mentions "twoo prose bookes plaied at the Belfauage," and Hearne tells us in a note at the end of William of Worcester, that he had feena MS. in the nature of a play or interlude, intitled, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore."

And in fact, there is fuch an old anonymous play in Mr. Pope's lift. "A pleasant conceited Hiftory, called, The Taming of a Shrew-fundry times acted by the Earl of

Pembroke his Servants." Which feems to have been republished by the remains of that company in 1607, when Shakspeare's copy appeared at the Black-Friars or the Globe.-Nor let this feem derogatory from the character of our poet. There is no reafon to believe, that he wanted to claim the play as his own; it was not even printed till fome years after his death: but he merely revived it on his stage as a manager.-Ravenscroft affures us, that this was really the cafe with Titus Andronicus; which, it may be observed, hath not Shakspeare's name on the title-page of the only edition published in his life-time. Indeed, from every internal mark, I have not the leaft doubt but this horrible piece was originally written by the author of the lines thrown into the mouth of the player in Hamlet, and of the tragedy of Locrine: which likewife, from fome affistance perhaps given to his friend, hath been unjustly and ignorantly charged upon Shakpeare.

But the sheet-anchor holds faft: Shakspeare himself hath left fome tranflations from Ovid. "The Epiftles,” says one," of Paris and Helen, give a fufficient proof of his acquaintance with that poet:" "And it may be concluded," fays another, "that he was a competent judge of other authors, who wrote in the fame language."